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Are Genres Capitalized? When Should We Capitalize Them?

Are Genres Capitalized? When Should We Capitalize Them?

When we talk, read or write about movies, music, and even books, we always end up discussing our favorite genre. However, when we are writing, there are rules we must abide by; one of such rules is the right capitalization rules. With these established rules, you might be wondering if genres are capitalized and when you should capitalize them.

No, you must not capitalize genre when writing. A genre can be a category of music, movie, art, or literature. These are all nouns, so genres are nouns, but you cannot capitalize them because they are not proper nouns. So, when you write, you cannot capitalize genres at all.

It looks pretty easy, right? You should know that it can become complicated when writing because some genres ought to be capitalized. Be rest assured we will explain the rules of capitalization.

Are Genres Capitalized?

Before we proceed to find out if genres are capitalized when writing, we will look at the word genre, the types, and the forms. A basic understanding of the word is an added advantage before we look at the rules of capitalization.

A genre is a specific type or category of music, literature, painting, movies, and other forms of entertainment or art. The word genre has its origin from a French word that means type or kind. Genres of music include hip-hop, reggae, blues, pop, jazz, opera, symphony.

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Genres of movies include action, romance, comedy, horror, drama, fiction, thriller, documentary, amongst others. We can go on looking at the genres of each of these, but that would take a lot of our time. We will see if genres are capitalized when writing.

Genres are not capitalized when writing. It is unacceptable to write a genre of music in capital letters, for example, “David is a big fan of Hip-Hop music.” This is unacceptable in the English language. “David is a big fan of hip-hop” is the accepted way.

Although genres are nouns, it is a countable noun. In the English language rules of capitalization, only proper and common nouns can be capitalized when writing. They are capitalized because they are general (common nouns) and specific (proper nouns) names of people, things, or places.

Genre is often used with different types of nouns. When you refer to a genre of music, it becomes an uncountable noun. A genre of movie is a countable noun, a genre of literature is an uncountable noun. Art is an uncountable noun, so a genre of art is an uncountable noun.

You can see, there is no time genre is either a proper or a common noun. So you cannot capitalize any genre when writing; that would be a violation of the capitalization rules of the English language.

Rules For Capitalizing Nouns

There is one basic rule for capitalizing nouns: the first letter of a proper and common noun must be capitalized, regardless of where it appears in a sentence or how it is used in that sentence.

For example, David lives in California; he is a Christian, and his date of birth is the 7th of October 1998. In the example above, David, California, Christian, and October are proper nouns. David is the name of a person, California is the name of a geographical location, Christian is the name of a religion, and October is a month.

Although you must capitalize all proper nouns, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Let us look at these few exceptions.

  • While it is important to capitalize months and days, you must not capitalize seasons. Fall, winter, summer, and spring cannot be capitalized except as the first word of the sentence.
  • Although the capitalization of general courses and subjects is a must, you cannot capitalize it when it has a general usage. For example, I am studying biology. The “biology” is not capitalized as opposed to Physics 204.
  • You must capitalize any title if it is part of a name, but when it is used generally, you do not capitalize it. For example, President Biden would visit the president of Spain next week.
  • Unless they are part of a list of astronomical names, you cannot capitalize the words moon and sun.

Countable nouns are not capitalized when writing, neither are uncountable nouns. From the name, you can infer the meaning; countable nouns are things that you can count, and uncountable nouns refer to things you cannot count.

If you look at proper and common nouns, you would see that countable and uncountable nouns fall under neither proper or common nouns. Hence, the reason you cannot capitalize them.

Genre is neither a general nor specific name. It is a subdivision of uncountable nouns like art and music as well as countable nouns like movies. And according to the rules of capitalization of nouns, only proper and common nouns can be capitalized.

Alternative Rules

So far, we have clarified the rules that govern the capitalization of nouns, including proper, common, countable, and uncountable nouns. However, there are a few exceptions to the capitalization of the genre.

There are a few exceptions where the capitalization of genre is justified, and you would not be violating the capitalization rules on nouns in the English language.

If the genre is the first word in a sentence, it must be capitalized. It is an established rule of capitalization in the English language, the first word in a sentence must be capitalized, and if it is a genre of music, movie, art, or literature, you must capitalize it. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Another exception to the rule of capitalization of the genre is if the genre name contains a proper noun, you must capitalize it. For example, it would be incorrect to write Jane loves listening to French pop. The correct way is Jane loves listening to French Pop. In the example above, the genre name contains a proper noun, in this case, the name of a place. So, it must be capitalized.

These are the two exceptions to the capitalization of genres when writing.

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Illustrative Examples

Now that we have explained the basic rules that govern the capitalization of nouns, we will look at some examples for better clarity.

Incorrect Capitalization

  1. John is a big fan of Contemporary music; he has a closet filled with different albums and mixtapes of Contemporary musicians.
  2. On our arrival in Spain, we met a band of musicians playing different Spanish funk music. It was a beautiful and soothing time.
  3. hip-hop has become the most popular genre in the world. Many hip-hop artists are breaking into the music industry.

 Correct Capitalization

  1. John is a big fan of contemporary music; he has a closet filled with different albums and mixtapes of contemporary musicians.
  2. On our arrival in Spain, we met a band of musicians playing different Spanish Funk music. It was a beautiful and soothing time.
  3. Hip-hop has become the most popular genre in the world. Many hip-hop artists are breaking into the music industry.

Some things to take note of from the examples above;

  • In the first example, “contemporary” is capitalized; it should be written in lowercase.
  • In the second example, the exception to the rule comes to play. The funk should have been capitalized because it has a proper noun in the name.
  • In the third example, you can see the second exception to the rule. “Hip-hop” is the first word in the sentence, so it must be capitalized.

Final Thoughts

When writing, there should be no reason for you to capitalize words wrongly. The wrong capitalization of words makes your writings difficult to read and comprehend. And for you to capitalize correctly, you must have learned the rules for capitalization in that particular language.

If you have been getting the capitalization of genres wrongly, read this blog post to know and understand the proper capitalization. So, read up and stay correct when writing.